11/18-20/03 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 1:30. There was 6 inches of heavy slushy snow on the ground and it was raining. After taking several runs at it and making some deep muddy ruts in the snow, I got the pickup to within about 30 feet of the trailer. I unloaded my gear and moved in and then backed the pickup back down to the gate. I figured it was probably going to snow some more and I didn't want to get stuck up there.

I tried to light the furnace again, but I decided that it wasn't going to work without a new thermocouple and pilot. I'll have to fix it one of these days. It would be nice to have it working in case of a long power failure.

I went to work cleaning up pack rat poop and I found a big stash of leaves where I had stored the vacuum cleaner Gus gave me and a bunch of fans and other electrical equipment Vladimir had given me. The pack rat had stuffed leaves into every space he could find so it took me the rest of the day to clean it all out. Before I quit for the night, I put some peanuts in the stovepipe rodent valve. Walking back to the trailer for the night, through the slush and rain I felt glad that I didn't have to work outside in those conditions any more.

On Wednesday, it was 33 degrees and clear. I was hoping that the peanuts would still be in the stovepipe, but they were gone. I still had rodents in the building. I cleaned up the new pack rat poop and then installed the new screws in the deadbolt locks.

I dismantled the door casing that I had tacked in place and stained the parts. Then, before lunch, I caulked and nailed on the front door casing. I think it looks real nice. After lunch, I caulked and nailed on the back door casing and I planed and stained the parts of the rough frame that I hadn't done before. Larry stopped by for a brief visit while I was doing that.

Now that the building is rodent proof, the next project is to finish the interior of the log walls and all the inside columns and beams. I planned to start with the hardest part - the ridgepole and the top of the gable over the living room. To reach this, I planned to set up a high scaffold tower resting on the floor. I rigged a come-along to a rope I had left hanging over the ridgepole and used it to lift all the scaffold frames, one at a time, up from the crawl space and stacked them on the first floor.

On Thursday morning, there was 6 inches of new snow so I decided that it was time to take the gate down for the winter. I need a scaffold frame to lift the gate off the post and I realized that I had better do that before all my scaffold frames were tied up in the scaffolding. I lowered one frame back down to the crawl space using the come-along rigging, and then carried it and a come-along down to the gate and took the log off the post. Then I carried the frame back up and pulled it back up to the first floor. I also made a long wand and screwed it to the gate post so that Mike could see where the post is and not dig it out of the ground again when he scoops out the driveway.

I set up a 3-tier scaffold so I can reach the top of the gable and the ridgepole. There are three frames in the two lower tiers, but only two on the top. The third tier would run into the Grid B purlin, so for that side, I rested the planks right on the purlin with the other end resting on the scaffold frame.

I plan to use Verathane to varnish the wood inside and I was wondering if it was okay to use it in freezing temperatures. I had one full quart can and one almost empty one so I read the label to see if it said you could or couldn't. It didn't say anything about cold temperatures except that it would cure more slowly the colder it was. I decided to do a test. I opened the part can and found that it was too thick to use. I poured some paint thinner in the can hoping that maybe in a couple weeks, it would make it usable again. I opened the new can and painted some on a test log so I will be able to see if it cures okay by the time I go back up. I left for home at 1:00. Everything looked so beautiful with that new clean snow. It had covered up my muddy tracks and it looked like a Christmas card.